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  • Bain’s Unusually Young Retirement Rollover Age: 23

    By Mark Maremont

    Bain Capital, the private-equity firm that Mitt Romney used to run, appears to have an unusual early-retirement age: 23. That’s the age at which, Bain employees are allowed to roll over their retirement funds from a Bain plan into their own IRAs, or simply withdraw the money.

    Federal law allows employees in such profit-sharing plans to roll over their funds into an IRA only under certain circumstances, such as when they leave their jobs, when they’ve been in the job a certain number of years, or when they reach a specified age, pension lawyers said. Normally, that age is something close to retirement, such as 50 or 55 years old.

    “I’ve never seen or drafted a plan permitting a distribution as early as 23,” said Charles M. Lax, a pension attorney at Maddin Hauser in Southfield, Mich. He said the Bain arrangement fits within IRS regulations, but “it’s inconsistent with the underlying premise of qualified retirement plans, which is that money’s supposed to be put away for your retirement. There aren’t too many people retiring at 23.”

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